Archives

Meta

Articles a plenty.

Professor Henry Petroski (pencil hero and pencil author) mailed us copy of a wonderful article he wrote for American Scientist for the March/April 2000 issue (Volume 88) entitled, “Why ‘The Pencil’?” in which he describes the onset of the pencil fascination that we all familiar with here at Pencil Revolution. While not available online, local and university libraries will likely have the archives of the journal, where Comrades can delight in this courageous piece. Subscribers of the publication can access the archives online, and both backissues and downloadable PDF versions can be purchased if the library comes up empty.

What’s more, Mad Tora sent us two links from The New York Times. The first is an article about Professor Petroski’s latest book, Success Through Failure: The Paradox of Design. The article describes the theme of the text, asserting with Professor Petroski that, “The analysis of engineering’s failures offers some good lessons.”

Hit Say It! too fast. When I was visiting her (my sister) in February, I gave her husband a Faber-Castell Perfect Pencil after watching him labor over sudoku in the London paper from Saturday through Monday. Didn’t improve my sister’s feelings about the matter, though.